Thursday, 10 February 2011

Moving [in] day

Yazz had pretty much cleaned home, Doris, the old house, whatever we’re supposed to call it now top to bottom by the time we pitched up at 8.30. A brief poke around the empty place, some tears (from Islay) and showing a trepidatious looking Dick around his new home and we were off again.

Walnut Tree House was nearly quiet when I arrived, a nervous looking Simon and Sarah finalising the cleaning and leaving of their own childhood home and the claggy fog of a February day. They left just at Butch, Jon and Julian pitched up and reversed their vans, shouting at each other, into the drive.

It was pretty intimidating to walk through the new house in its empty state. With each room unfurnished the fairly careworn state of the place was abundantly clear - “not so much tired as exhausted” as Betsy commented. And as the rooms filled up with cardboard boxes, furniture and dirt tracked across the carpet it only became more intimidating.

I busied myself erecting furniture so that we could have somewhere to sleep for the night.

Some of the neighbours popped round to be social, and by the end of the day we wound up with three bottles of wine, a freshly baked Victoria sponge cake and a loan fridge courtesy of Denise.

Dinner was fish and chips on the table, loomed over by cardboard and grime, still feeling a bit rootless.